Class Reflection 2/27/11

The thing that jumped out to me most about today's class wasn't necessarily something about the class itself. I found the discussion about the definition of music very interesting, and since I am a musician, that should come as no surprise. However, what was most interesting to me was that I found it just as interesting when we had almost the same conversation (right down to the use of, and debate about the value of, John Cage's ""4'33") in Music Theory I, which I took my freshman year. This is not a bad thing, though. I found that conversation interesting then, and I gained plenty of insight from it, but because of the context in which it was being presented I was only looking at it in terms of music. Now, having the same conversation in a totally different class, I can look at it as it relates to a much broader field of topics.

Also, today's class reminded me of a quote from one of my favorite musicians, Tom Waits. He does a lot of the sort of found sounds and unorthodox uses of things in his music. He said,

"Everything is a potential instrument, it depends on how you use it. I remember I was doing Swordfishtrombones and somebody took a stool -- a metal stool -- and started dragging it across the studio floor to move it out of the way. And I said, "That's really thrilling. Do that again and abundantly and carefully and repeatedly, please." It sounded like bus brakes on a big city bus. So I like things that fall outside of the spectrum of what we consider traditional instruments and acceptable sound. I love all that." (source)

Tigers

First off, here are my "What if..." questions. For these, I tried to more or less completely turn off my mind's filter, and just write the first thing that came into my mind. As a result, some of these are better or more unique than others.

1. What if tigers could fly?
2. What if tigers were really good at chess?
3. What if tigers were great musicians?
4. What if tigers were sentient?
5. What if tigers had their own society?
6. What if humans evolved from tigers?
7. What if tigers evolved from humans?
8. What if tigers are actually aliens?
9. What if there are no such thing as tigers, and they’re just a mass hallucination?
10. What if some people were tigers in disguise?
11. What if some tigers were people in disguise?
12. What some people were tigers in disguise, who were in turn people in disguise?
13. What if tigers made great pets?
14. What if tiger sharks were actual tiger-shark hybrids?
15. What if tiger the tiger society (from no. 5) had a civil war?
16. What if in this tiger civil war, there was a tiger Abraham Lincoln?
17. What if tigers were robots?
18. What if tigers kept other animals in their own zoos?
19. What if dead tigers came back as zombies?
20. What if tigers teamed up with apes to cause the apocalypse?
21. What if tigers made their own TV shows?
22. What if tigers could use computers?
23. What if tigers were super intelligent, but incapable of understanding art?
24. What if people ate tigers like they do other animals?
25. What if tigers were common as pets?
26. What if tigers had their own pets?
27. What if all fake tigers (toys, pictures, etc.) were actually alive and real tigers?
28. What if there was a super hero tiger?
29. What if every family had one member who was a tiger?
30. What if a tiger was elected President?
31. What it tigers had awesome beards?
32. What if tigers built the pyramids?
33. What if every tiger alive is actually one tiger who can make duplicates of him/herself?
34. What if tigers could play awesome guitar solos, but were otherwise no different than usual.
35. What if the earth was made of tigers?
36. What if tigers were behind every conspiracy theory ever?
37. What if every sports team named for tigers was made up of actual tigers?
38. What if Mac OS X Tiger was an actual tiger?
39. What if a tiger sued Apple over the use of its likeness in Apple’s OS.
40. What if tigers could only be found in Ohio?
41. What if a tiger got a job as a banker?
42. What if the band Tigers on Trains was made up of actual tigers?
43. What if Hollywood remade all Nicholas Cage movies, replacing Cage with a tiger?
44. What if the president had to fight a tiger to be inaugurated?
45. What if a tiger was named king of Pennsylvania?
46. What if tigers could transform into cars?
47. What if tigers could regrow their limbs like lizards?
48. What if a tiger endorsed a political candidate?
49. What if tigers could do someone’s homework for them for a fee?
50. What if tigers were functional alcoholics?

Secondly, here is what I made based around the idea of a tiger. Since this assignment it is due on Presidents' Day, and it's related to one of my questions, I figured the only reasonable thing I could do was create an image of some presidents fighting a tiger.

This image was created by compositing parts of several images I found online. The sources are as follows:

Presidents: http://what-do-you-do.net/forums/index.php?topic=5404.0
Tiger: http://hairhelmet12.deviantart.com/art/Tiger-Attack-200041474
Setting: http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-photo/hithere52/2/1235677440/the-gladiator-arena.jpg/tpod.html

Class Reflection - 2/13/12

The biggest thing that stood out to me from today's class was the discussion of priorities. This is always a big issue for me, because it seems to me that others try to dictate what your priorities should be. Some individual classes and part-time jobs I've had have seemed to have the idea that they are the single most important thing in their students'/employees' lives. I've even done volunteer work for groups that then later look down on you if you give higher priority to something else, such as school or a job that's actually paying you the money you need to survive.) If everyone and everything in my life that wanted to be my top priority got their way, I would need to split into dozens of copies of myself just to fill those roles.

Book v2.0

In thinking about this assignment, I considered what I think makes a book a book. I like e-books, but when I think of a book that's not what I think of. I like paper and ink and binding, in a physical object that takes up space on my shelf. There's something about a book that is special, something to reading a book that is different than reading the exact same content on an iPad or a Kindle. It's more than the difference between listening to music on mp3s vs. vinyl (which I also do quite a bit). Reading a physical book engages the senses more, and the tiny, subtle details really define the experience.

That being said, I really like the interactiveness of e-books. The ability to embed hyperlinks into a novel, or copy and paste text at will, is perhaps the most interesting thing to have happened to literature in decades. Therefore, I figured that I would make a mock book that combines the two - a physical book with some of the augmented features of an e-book.

(Note: Please ignore and/or forgive my somewhat poor Photoshop skills. I'm an audio/video producer, and not very good with Photoshop, but this was the best way I could get my idea across.)

 As you can see, this a real book, with ink and pages and other such wonderful high-tech features.

However, you can use it like an e-book. Certain things would contain hyperlinks. For instance, selecting the "soon to be a major motion picture" icon would bring up the film's trailer, right on the cover of the book.

Also, text could be selectable. This would make for easy quotations and such.

 These are just a couple of things that would be possible with this interactive physical book. Is it possible? I don't know. But would I buy it if it existed? Absolutely.

How to "Read" a Book

Note: I am using my own personal book collection for this assignment.

When I look at my book collection, my eye is first drawn to George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. This is likely because I have been recently reading this series, so I am used to seeing these books a lot lately.

My finger landed on a section discussing the shockingly-frightening aspects of the botfly. In the specific paragraph my finger landed on, the letter "p" appears 4 times (it's a fairly short paragraph.) I guess I can imagine the white space as a sea and the other parts as islands, though not particularly vividly. It's hard to look at the page and not see words.

The paper is slightly rough, but evenly so. There is little wear on the page. I cannot feel the ink. The cover is very smooth and glossy, and I can't feel any difference in the colors. On the edges of the cover, I can feel a little wear.

The book is a paperback book, that is made entirely of paper. It seems to be glued, and there do not seem to be any signatures. The glue seems to be flat against each end of the spine.

There is no other writing in the book. However, I don't really think I am possibly the first person to think about it, so I honestly don't really think it makes me feel any particular way.

There are no stains on the book. There are some faint fingerprints on the glossy cover, though they are mostly faded. This is likely from being handled.

The pages are a slightly brownish-yellow color, slightly warm and very dull. The insides of the cover are whiter. All the printing is in black or shades of grey.

I don't see any evidence that anyone else handled the book. The edges of the pages are smooth. I imagine anyone else who has read this book (another copy obviously, as I bought this one new) would find it funny and informative, as that is the goal of the book. I doubt that anyone else has used this book this way before.

The sound of the pages flipping is a faint, short sound, rather dull and heavier in lower frequencies with a subtler higher-end element. I can faintly feel the wind from the book, but I can't move anything (even other paper) with it, so I doubt I could win any game with it.

I can't feel anything from dropping the book on the floor (it is a fairly light book). Taking my shoes off doesn't change anything.

The book is lukewarm at first. After holding it, I can sense a very slight difference in temperature where I was holding it. I suspect I never noticed this before because it is so slight that I would have to look for it to notice.

The book smells like a book. I know that sounds obvious, but I've spent more than enough time in my life in bookstores and libraries to know the smell of books. It does smell like a relatively fresh book, though, with not much other sent from being handled by too many people.

The book is called You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News. It is a book published by Cracked.com, with informative articles presented in a humorous way. Page 1 starts the article I was on earlier, entitled "The Five Most Horrifying Bugs in the World." If I didn't know why the book was titled as it was, I would still probably correctly surmise that it is titled as such because it presents such weird, disturbing facts in an upbeat, joking manner.

I honestly don't think that my experience with the book has changed much by doing this. That's not a dig at the assignment in any way, I just don't know that I'll view this particular book or books in general vastly differently. I might notice the temperature thing again though. I never found books boring. I've been an avid reader since I was a child, which is why I was able to use my own book collection for this assignment. Again, I don't really think my opinion of books has changed much.

This assignment seemed to be very "fishbowled." It required me to select a red book, specifically, and then it went through a series of mostly very specific steps of what to do with it. I think that the point of this exercise was to experience a common object from a totally different perspective. This could lead to me thinking more outside the box with things in future projects, specifically in that I might be able to look at physical objects differently from their intended purpose.